A report from Tech Nation, a new organisation designed to help accelerate the growth of the digital tech sector across the UK, the number of jobs in the industry in Scotland hit 48,448 last year, up 8 per cent on 2016.

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The three Scottish tech hubs of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee are singled out in the report. Together they contribute £2.4bn, or three-fifths, of Scotland’s total tech turnover.

The tech sector in Scotland is worth £3.9bn with digital tech turnover per employee reaching £80,000, according to the report.

The Tech Nation report said that Scotland’s capital is home to two of the UK’s best known unicorns - Skyscanner, bought by Ctrip of China in 2016, and gaming company, Fanduel.

It added that CodeBase, the UK’s largest tech incubator, has breathed new life into a rundown city office block near Edinburgh castle, and has been significant in providing a focal-point for the capital’s tech community.

Edinburgh is also home to CivTech, the Scotland-wide initiative helping start-ups solve public sector challenges.

Acquisitions are identified as a noticeable feature of Edinburgh’s tech sector in the last year, with Aquila Insight being bought by Merkle, Converse.AI by Smartsheet and Cloudgine by Epic.

The report said that Glasgow’s lower living costs are attracting a new generation of tech start-ups and workers, with a strong focus on data science.

Dundee continues to be dominated by the gaming industry, with the city’s talent stemming from renowned computer science and gaming courses at the University of Dundee and Abertay University, according to the report.

Graduates from these courses have gone on to work for Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Rockstar North.

“Data from our latest Tech Nation 2018 report shows that Scottish companies have continued to add jobs and are actively meeting up and collaborating across the sector. It is great to see that Scotland’s strengths in Artificial Intelligence and in data science are helping to bring forward many new start-ups.”

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Sandy McKinnon, a partner at Pentech Ventures, one of Scotland’s investors, said: “As investors we think the talent here measures up to that which we are seeing throughout Europe. Scottish companies have entrepreneurialism in their veins, they rightly need to look outwards and think beyond these islands.”